


Gifted

by KillerHusky



Series: The Gifted Series [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Anxiety, Bullying, Clairvoyance, Dystopia, Far Future, Future, Genetic Engineering, Government Conspiracy, High School, Kidnapping, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Mutant Powers, Mystery, Panic Attacks, Post-Apocalypse, Prison, Rebellion, Science Fiction, Teenage Rebellion, Telekinesis, Telepathy, War, World War III
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-04-26 04:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14394270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillerHusky/pseuds/KillerHusky
Summary: Adrian Peters is a teen just like us who lives in Unica, formerly North America, it's the only country left after World War III devastated the world several centuries ago. Adrian is just like us because he is, by our standards, ordinary. By our standards anyway. Unicans aren't like us, everyone has a special power, an "ability". Whether its flight, truth seeing, or mind reading, everyone can do extraordinary things. Except for Adrian.At the mercy of pitiful sympathy and vicious bullying, Adrian loses hope that he'll have a tolerable life, let alone an ability of his own. But one day is all it takes for everything Adrian both loved and hated about his life to get turned upside down. After being thrown into stakes far greater than he is equipped to face, and a discovery that shatters his reality. Friendships will be forged and broken, family will hang in the balance, and hidden demons will be forced to surface. Can Adrian survive the inevitable consequences of his actions, and try to save the things he holds most dear?





	1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE  
The sharp, overly loud ringing of my alarm clock wakes me from my half-conscious stupor, and by the position of the hands I know that I can’t delay getting up any longer. I do what I do every morning, and take a few seconds to stare at the map tacked to the wall above my headboard.  
This is worth delaying for.  
It’s remarkably well preserved for something of its age, the map paper is soft and non-laminated, with only the slightest wear and yellowing at the edges. Wrinkles and creases create something like a web across the multicolored surface.The map is of my country, but before it was what it is now, back when it was a place called North America.   
This continent is composed of smaller, distinct sections. I’m living in what used to be the United States, which on the map is further split into even smaller sections. Which is ironic to me, how something so divided could be considered united.  
I brush my fingers over the states and cities and think about how many people used to live here, and how much of it disappeared after the war. So many names in place of one we have now. Unica. It really puts things into perspective, it makes me appreciate the times we live in today, in a war free world. At least. I appreciate it most of the time.   
I’ve already pushed my luck with the time. I jump out of the bubble of warmth under my comforter, and out of my small, musty room. I almost flinch when I hit the cold tile of my even smaller bathroom.  
Don’t get me wrong, I love my house. It started out as a tiny, yellow, one story ranch a couple of blocks away from the ocean, but over time it’s been extended in the back and on top. My bathroom on the upstairs adjoins my room and is painted a golden-orangish color that looks beautiful when the sun rises through the ocean facing window.   
I don’t take long in the shower, even though the hot water took a couple of minutes to really get going. Mainly because I could hear my mother’s badgering coming from downstairs, over both the shower and the fan mind you. I struggle to dry myself off quickly and brush my unruly brown hair into a semi-straight part, zip on a maroon hoodie and blue jeans then go down the stairs two at time to find my mother cross-armed in our kitchen. She’s the only one here, so I’m guessing my dad has already left for work. That means there's nothing between her piercing blue eyes and myself.  
“You do understand that the train gets here in two minutes right?” I don’t answer her. It’s not like I need to, the question is rhetorical anyway. And she would instantly know if I was lying or not.  
This isn’t some motherly instinct either, she has the ability to sense truth and lies the moment someone speaks. She has a unique ability, but it’s not like it’s unusual, a lot of people have powers like her. Everyone does actually.   
Well, except for me. Maybe that was a good thing.  
I don’t say anything, she doesn’t say anything, but there’s a change in her face.  
“Adrian,” her tone becomes soothing and sympathetic. “I know school has been getting worse. You don’t have to go this week if you don’t want to.” It’s a tempting offer that I’ve never been given, but I want to go. I don’t know why, maybe last night I subconsciously hit my self destruct button or something.  
“It’s okay mom, I don’t really have a choice anyway.” This week is the Unican cultural awareness week at my school, something too big to miss. Well only if I care about my grades anyway. I'd only draw more attention to myself, and I can't have that. She looks like she wants to say something more, but I don’t let her.  
“Woah, mom, you understand the train will be here any second right?” She makes a sour face as I turn her statement back on her, but it turns to a small smirk.  
“I love you, see you later.” Her bangs are the same brown as mine, and I have to part them to plant a peck on her forehead before I sprint out the door to the maglev station. Its two blocks just two away, another perk of living where I do.  
I live on a long, narrow barrier island just off the coast of the mainland, it’s the main residential area for my town. The rest of the town is on the other side of the bay, and the maglev train is the only way to get off the island.  
The two block walk to the station means I get two unobstructed views of the ocean on my way if I look through the dunes.  
You can see the last streaks of pale orange and yellow give way to the blue sky far out on the ocean just before the horizon. There is never a day when I can’t look over and see the massive expanse of dark blue-green water, hear the endless, rhythmic flow of the tides or smell the salt in the breeze. It’s something I like to ground myself with when I’m not feeling so hot, and it comforts me.   
It’s what I’m doing right now to be honest.  
Being the one person to be born without some kind of power (since powers were a thing, at least) can attract a lot of unwanted attention. Don’t get me wrong, most of the people I see will dish out some sympathetic stares, or even maybe a whisper to the person next to them; it’s nothing really bad or anything. It’s just a bit rude.  
However, every rule has exceptions. And my lovely exception’s name is Alex Chekov. He was blessed with the ability to cause me never ending pain in my life. Literally. Anyone he focuses on is afflicted with any type of pain he wants. He can make anyone relive pain they had once experienced in their life by pulling it forth from their own memory. Every time he does too, his pinched little rodent face always cracks a smile.  
I mean, do I need that? No.  
Thankfully, the only three people I see when I get to the platform are busy talking to each other. The train hasn’t come yet according to the schedule projected by the inside seats.  
Alex likes to think that I’m the perfect victim because I can’t fly away or zap him with some electricity like some other classmates of mine can. This has caused many of my friends to alienate me, so he wouldn't target them too. Ever since their powers manifested, I've been alone. This has caused the teachers to treat me like a charity case and for the school administration to sit down with both of our parents. Regularly. But they only go so far. It's never a permanent fix, he always comes back.  
No matter what they do, nothing stops Alex. No one seems to either care enough or has the guts to do anything, whenever someone tries to step in, his parents cause enough of a scene to keep him from getting into trouble.  
“Hey pal!” A scream from behind me disturbs me and the other people waiting on the platform. Her jabs at my sides only add to the shock factor.  
It seems the other exception to the rule has found me.   
Unlike Alex, Natalie is on the polar opposite of my social spectrum. She hops from behind to face me, her blonde cowgirl braids are following suit. We’ve known each other since we were very little, it was one of those rare times when forced playdates between two friends’ children actually worked. If she can’t be my sister in blood, this saint with the pale green eyes and the round, kind face is my sister in every other aspect. My parents even put a picture of her on our mantle.  
The train pulls up out of nowhere to me, despite it being late. All of the kids and teens sit in the cars set aside for students the one that Nat and I enter is the least packed.  
“That was unnecessary, Nat.” I chastise as we sit down in an empty row of seats on the first deck of the car, slightly annoyed but glad she came to break the monotony.  
“I just want to make sure you’re mind and body are awake and ready to receive the oodles of priceless information we are lucky enough to learn on this special day.” She’s quoting our principal from an assembly all of the tenth years had to attend last friday, briefing us on the special cultural awareness week that starts today. Natalie still can’t get over the fact that he used the word “oodles.”  
The train starts moving, so smoothly in fact that I can only tell by looking outside.  
The last voice I wanted to hear pulls me from the window.  
“Oh I’m sure it will be a week to remember.” My bones chill and my hair stands on end. Staring into my eyes is Alex Chekov. “Do you mind if I sit next to you Adrian? These seats are filling up fast.”   
Reflexively, Natalie forms a small shield around our seats and the empty one next to mine, “Sit on the floor like any trash, Chekov.”  
I look in shock at her and see she is already paling. Alex stands there for a minute, seeing her face as well, before walking to sit next to some poor defenseless fifth years. Out of the corner of my eye I see them part much more than needed for him to sit down.  
“You know full well you shouldn’t be using your shield unless it’s serious!” I whisper shout to her, not wanting to bring up her condition to anyone who doesn’t need to know.   
Natalie can generate and manipulate force fields, however this doesn’t come free. Her power has a degenerative effect on her body. Usually she will only feel a little tired if she uses it, but she has fainted once before, and it could kill her if she overextends herself in a short amount of time. Many people possess this defective trait, it's a mutation in the gene that causes o negative blood.   
“Sometimes I can’t help it, you know that.” She says sharply, her color is already coming back. “Besides, he needs to know that you are off limits to his game.”   
I feel guilty, my problem has been a strain on her since we were sixth years. She’s too overprotective of me. Natalie knows that while Alex’s power only makes me feel like I’m being hurt while her ability actually does hurt her. She powers up so often when he's near me...  
“It’s been years Nat, what do you think you can actually accomplish besides hurting yourself.” Her ears flush with color, she likes to be the parent friend, not the other way around.  
“All I need to do is just hold out for the next year and a half, then I’m home free.” Graduation, it couldn't come soon enough.   
Her eyes tell me I haven’t won this argument. But a light punch to my arm tells me she’s back to her easy going self. “Let’s just worry about getting through the week Andy.” She says through a crooked smile.


	2. Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO  
The amount of time it takes for the train to get from the island, across the small bay, and to the school on the mainland is only ten minutes. But it feels like it’s here too long, and gone too quickly. We step off the train and onto the sprawling school campus.  
It sits on a plot of land as big as the town it’s based in, green grass dotted with evergreen and maple trees. Clumps of vibrant flowers line brick school buildings; broken up and divided by cobblestone walkways and benches. The school district serves my community as well as three other towns adjoining us. The four massive buildings serve one grade each, and are centered around an expansive sports complex.   
Natalie and I walk into our building, through the small atrium adorned with floor to ceiling glass on the side we came through. Black and yellow ribbons representing our school colors are woven throughout the whole thing. We try to draw out the time it takes to go to our homeroom as much as possible, walking so slowly that our feet don't even echo off the tile as we step. When we get there, Nat tries to start a conversation.  
“So what’s happening today, ‘cause I totally blanked during that assembly last week.”  
But she remembered ‘oodles’ I guess.  
I shake my head. She never pays attention to anything that’s said to her, but she still holds a higher rank than me in our class; the highest.  
“The history museum in New Trenton.” New Trenton was the capital of the region of Unica. “Well it beats sitting around in a desk all day I guess,” She let out with a sigh as we walk into the harsh, white, light of our homeroom. We’re the last to show up.  
“At first I was worried that you wouldn’t be gracing us with your presence Ms Clifton, as you haven’t on several occasions during this marking period.” Our homeroom advisor and history teacher Mr Rivers says softly as he marks us present on his tablet. Jis usual tired looking face and hunched over appearance look more pronounced today.  
I think I know why too. Me.   
Natalie never comes to homeroom, she says she should only be obligated to go to classes and nothing else. So she decides to cut homeroom and show up late too, often sleeping during assemblies as a small display of civil disobedience.  
We go to sit down at a table in the back of the room before Mr Rivers grabs my shoulder. “I’m glad you came Adrian, I’ll try to make this as painless as possible for you.” He says in a low voice.   
Mr Rivers is one of my biggest defenders in the whole saga with Alex, and I appreciate his sympathy. I do not, however, appreciate the fact that he took the time to tell me his words of support in front of the entire class. I get a few quick stares in my direction as I sit down next to Natalie and her friends, the Eskridge twins. Mr Rivers begins to go over what we’ll be doing at the History museum. Nothing new from last week, so none of us are really paying attention.  
The Eskridge twins are very interesting people. They are who Natalie hangs out with… when she’s not here at school with me. For starters they are heterochromatic (which means that their eyes are two different colors), however this in itself is a unique quality as their eyes are not simple colors like one blue and one brown, but their eyes are grey and purple. Abilities can have this effect on people. Even though they lay dormant in our bodies until puberty, they can affect some of our physical attributes. Mainly, eye color and hair color are different. Sometimes skin color and even things like their teeth and digits are affected by a person’s power too.  
Aside from their eyes, there’s nothing unusual about the twins. The girl, Ari, has very light blonde hair with looped curls. Her skinny frame stands closer to five feet as opposed to six. Her ability allows her to see about a minute or so into the future.  
Ari’s brother, Ash, is similar to her but slightly different. Ash’s athletic build is nearly six feet tall and is topped off with sandy hair that’s been cropped short. His eyes are the opposite orientation of Ari. His power works well with Ari’s, he can travel about five minutes into the past.  
Normally powers like these are sure to give the wielder certain advantages when it comes to the social environment of the school. However, these guys with arguably the most powerful abilities in the school, decided to hang with Nat and I. Only about one in fifty of kids in our school are transfers. So when Ari and Ash transferred into our class as eighth years, it was apparent that it would be very difficult for them to assimilate. However when the twins happened across Nat when she was overusing her power to protect me, they found a common piece of ground that could kickstart a casual friendship. The twins are both afflicted with a similar degenerative disorder in their abilities, ergo the short time limit on their time manipulation.  
The sound of Mr River’s calling out certain students snaps me out of my thousand yard stare. “-Stephen is with Ari, Ash is with Carol, and Natalie is with Adrian. You guys can go where you want once we’re in the museum, but you have to be where it says you are to go for lunch and when we leave, and you have to be there together.”  
Natalie gives me a quick wink and a tap to the arm with her fist.  
We all begin to file out of the classroom, but Mr Rivers holds Nat and I back until the room is empty.  
“Now I do expect you to not cause any trouble today Natalie, because what you do will impact the museum’s view on our school.” Her face betrays a quick flash of disgust before reverting back to its resting state.  
“Alex is a negative impact on our school.”  
Mr. Rivers’ face doesn’t betray any emotion, but Nat and I both know that he feels the same way.   
“I’m also trusting you to mediate anything that might happen between you and Alex, because his homeroom and ours will be attending the museum today-”  
No…   
“-and I can’t keep my eyes on just you. But I'm telling you now, do not use your power at all, that's coming from me, the administration and your mother.”  
Natalie doesn't even react to the quip about her power, because she's going pink from rage about the fact that Alex is coming with us.   
Me, I can’t even focus on a single emotion.  
Now she’s going red.

I don’t know whether to be angry or scared or defeated about this, but whatever chance I had to vocalize my emotional tsunami was taken up by Natalie. “Well I’ve been managing without the tireless help of our school’s dedicated administration so far, so I’m not too concerned.” She says bitterly. We leave Mr. Rivers as we walk out of the room, out of the school, and onto the train. The noise of all of us talking is enough for Natalie to speak louder than normal.  
“It pisses me off how completely airheaded this school is, one of these days I’m gonna let everyone know exactly what the hell I think.” She says, not caring about the fact that a couple of the other tenth year teachers are within earshot.  
As the train pulls up I reply, “Let’s just worry about making it through the day Nat.” I respond to her subsequent glare with a sly smile, my very hard to maintain smile. That’s the second time I’ve turned a phrase around on someone. Thankfully I haven't seen Alex in the crown yet, so far so good.  
When the train starts, we manage to fight through enough people to find a booth on the second deck. It’s directly under the skylight. I fight Nat hard enough to sit on the window side of our bench. Ari and Ash sit immediately after us on the other side.  
Ari seems to notice the remnants of my tension from homeroom. “Don’t worry Andy, I foresee nothing going badly in your future as of now.” She says with a soft smile, every emotion she has is soft.  
“It’s my lucky day, the next minute of my life is gonna be perfectly adequate.” I jest back at her, but I know that she was actually trying to reassure me behind the joke. Alex vexes her nearly as much as he does Natalie. Whatever the case, I crack a small smile, which she matches.  
However, Ari was right. The next sixty seconds, as well as the next forty five minutes or so, were adequately uneventful.


	3. Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE  
Like someone a long time ago once said, all good things must come to an end. The train pulls to a stop in New Trenton, a city whose skyline is dominated by low-rise office buildings and the ancient government building capped with a gold leaf dome. We learned last year that the river to the west of the city was the site of a significant military skirmish during the revolutionary war of the United States. It’s very interesting how a seemingly unassuming stretch of brown water could hold such importance. Without people all of the world seem so unassuming. History brings things into perspective and makes us really rethink the way we see the world.   
At least that’s what the brochures the teachers handed out said. By Nat’s face as we walk out of the dingy station, down a few blocks of streets lined with tall buildings and enter the museum… she disagrees.  
We walk through the main lobby of the museum, a large and open atrium with marble floors and columns and a glass skylight shining light on all four floors of the building. In the lobby are large vehicles of war. Tanks, fighter jets, and land transport vehicles from all three World Wars are all either hanging from transparent cables or resting on the floor. Not everything here is violent though: busts of important figures of Unican history, booster rockets, and prototype spaceships from when countries still launched rockets, and a model of the first maglev train to be invented.   
Who I guess is the curator walks over says a short welcome. He looks like somebody's grandpa. The old man boasts a receding hairline, square lens glasses and a brown suit jacket with elbow pads. After a minute or two of trying to get the crowd’s attention, the curator leads us into a small doorway off to the side. While I think we are going to one of the exhibits that branch off from the atrium, we find ourselves in a small movie theatre.  
After sitting down with Nat and Ash on either side of me, I feel a slight burning pain in my fingers. Alex can see me from somewhere else in the room, and he wants me to know that without me unintentionally giving him up. Can’t have too much pain. Yet.   
Despite it only being a small amount of pain, Nat can sense it and grabs my hand. She can sense changes in me that sometimes even I am not aware of, and it always surprises me.   
The curator tries to get our attention. The noise of all of us in the theatre is enough to smother his weak and frustrated attempts. Mr Rivers sees this and screams a colossal “QUIET!” While he can be silent most of the time, that man has a superhuman volume. After everyone in the theatre, and many people in the lobby most likely, grow completely silent, the curator finally begins to speak, albeit shakily.  
“Welcome everyone, and on behalf of the New Trenton Museum of Unican History. My name is Dr Brauhn. I implore you to gain as much out of this visit as you possibly can. The rich and unique history of our country extends long back, even before the Third World War. Unican history has much to teach not only those in power, but for every citizen big and small. Now before you are released to explore the museum as you please, I would like to show you this quick documentary film on what sorts of things you will find in the exhibits.  
“If you’ll please excuse me Mr Rivers and Mrs Trettel (the name of Alex’s homeroom teacher), I must go back into the booth and turn the lights off,”   
“Oh no need Dr Brauhn, one of my students’ abilities is photokinetic in nature.” the other homeroom teacher Mr Rivers replies swiftly. “Stephen, will you get the lights please?”  
No more than a second after, the lights in the room dim from a fluorescent white-blue to a ghostly orange, as if the curator had turned off the lights himself. Dr Brauhn whispers “Fascinating,” before he goes to the projector towards the front of the theatre and switches it on.  
The first thing I see is grainy, black and white footage looking over the smoking remains of small towns, troop movements, and other various clips of war footage. This must be centuries old.  
“This was supposed to be the war to end all wars.” A narrator begins, monotonously. “It’s four year tenure spanning from 1914 to 1918 is one of the deadliest conflicts in world history.We know it as world war one. The most widespread war at its time, conflict extended across the continent of Europe and involved all of the existing great economic and military powers. The end result… up to eighteen million people killed and widespread disease, famine, and economic hardship for years to come. The world is to never know war again.”  
I feel the pain from Alex start to subside. I don’t know where he is, but this documentary is either peaking his interest or making him fall asleep. I’m just glad I’m not on his mind at the moment. Someone is whispering further up front, to which Mrs Trettle responds with a swift ‘Shh’  
“Twenty one years later... World War Two. Even larger than its predecessor, fighting involved the majority of the world’s nations and took place across all corners of the globe. The “total war” scenario meant that the entire economic power of the world was diverted to the war effort, and that civilians and youth in particular were force fed propaganda as often as possible. This was a time when cities were bombed, entire cultures were the subject of genocide, and intense fear and hatred brewed in the hearts of every human being on the globe. As a result, we have up to eighty five million people dead, paranoia and weapons production lasting for decades to come in the form of the cold war, and a world that would never be the same again.  
“However not everything to come out of the war was destructive. This is where the people of Unica can draw their origins. The United States successfully conducted nuclear research in the form of the Manhattan project in order to avert a land invasion of the Japanese island of Honshu. However, another project was in development alongside the Manhattan Project if it ever happened to fail along the way. This project was the earliest research in what we know today as our abilities-”  
Instantly I feel a pain on my forearm that’s slightly stronger than the last time Alex got me, Natalie starts rubbing my hand with her thumb. I look down to find where the pain is coming from. The scar that I got when I burned myself when I was a fifth year.   
“Just tell me if I need to go get Rivers, okay?” Natalie whispers in my ear, evidently loud enough for Mrs Trettle to give another angry “shhh!”  
I give her a slight nod and turn my attention back to the film.  
“However, after the success of the Nuclear assault on Japan, the ability project was sidelined in favor of mass-producing nuclear weapons and would not be a top tier priority until the late 2010’s  
“World War Three explodes into being during the spring of 2019. The war to end all wars arrives nearly a century late. Seventy five countries across six continents, or the majority of the world population, clashed together in fiery conflict for a decade. The United States fared worse than most, being the main battlefield during the early stages of the war. In a desperate attempt to gain an edge on the battlefield, the ability project became top priority in military research. The project was designed to genetically enhance the nation’s armed forces by giving heightened senses, agility, stamina and pain resistance to combatants. Although the United States ultimately fell due to the strain of the war of attrition, the ability project did succeed in some form.  
“Adaptive enhancements made in the human genetic code allowed for certain superhuman traits to manifest in the affected persons, and after the United States fell, the survivors wandered the war torn country. Eventually, slowly, rebuilt society in the form of Unica. The abilities also lived on, as those experimented on had children and grandchildren, the genes for abilities were inherited and adapted through the centuries. Now the entire Unican population possesses a wide array of abilities-”  
I make eye contact with Nat, who gives me a little tap on the arm. “At least now we can say we’re smarter than these buffs in the antique shop.”  
I can’t help but crack a smile. Even though the pain that Alex is causing makes it harder to put one on my face. What Natalie didn’t point out was that there was a second error in the documentary. Our President, Julius Wolfe, has more than one power.  
Don’t you love it when documentaries date themselves?  
“Abilities, as we see them, are an identifiable singular power that is outside the criteria for normal human traits. They manifest themselves in the early stages of puberty. It is assumed that Unica is alone in their possession of this power, as Unica itself, is assumed alone in this world. But we do know this, abilities (albeit them being man made in origin), are to be the next phase in human evolution and it is for the benefit of society that we possess them.”  
The screen fades to black and Dr Brauhn is standing up.  
“You may turn the lights back, on young man.” He says, and just like that they instantly snap back on. That slight groan that everyone gives off when their eyes adjust fills the room for only the shortest of moments.  
Mr Rivers stands up next in a magnified voice over the noise of us all talking, “Now if you all would line up at the exit, Dr Brauhn will be handing you wristbands for the museum and maps of the exhibits. I will be giving you a packet that I expect you to fill out, you will be quizzed on the information you learn here when we return to the school!”  
We all groan a bit and shuffle to make a line along the walkway bisecting the small theatre. Nat and I end up at the end of the line.   
I didn’t know he was coming until I saw the transparent, shimmering green wall of Nat’s forcefield around the two of us.  
“Now you don’t have to be hostile, I’m just waiting in line.” Alex must have forced himself through the crowd to end up next to us. His pale, freckled, and pinched face is caught up in a sneer.  
Mr Rivers is completely engrossed in his task and doesn’t know what’s going on, and I don't see Mrs Trettle. That’s fine, Alex is nothing new to me.  
“Lower the shield Nat.” I say. She looks like she doesn’t want to but she does. Her breathing is much more deep than normal. This doesn’t mean she’s done though. “You know I’m starting to like this place, I saw your mom in an exhibit on the way in here.” She manages in between breaths.  
Alex chuckles.  
“You’re so funny, hopefully it rubs off on my friend Adrian here.” He pats me on the shoulder, sending waves of pain across my body that force me to the ground. My shoulder injury during family football. I can’t help letting out a yelp that gets the attention of some of the other kids in the room.  
“Don’t you touch him!” Nat yells and pushes him away, however her making contact with Alex forces her to the ground in pain too. She’s worse off than I am, in the fetal position and almost crying.  
I don’t know what to do, but suddenly I’m filled with rage. My heart’s pounding, I have to stop this.   
“GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HER NOW!” I scream as I shove Alex away.  
But something else happens  
I feel as if a thousand things are going on at the same time, impossibly fast and impossibly slow. I feel pain and rage and excitement… and fear, but it doesn’t feel like mine.   
Even though I can clearly see and hear everything going on around me, it's all happening so far away and disconnected from me. I don't react, I can't react.  
Alex goes flying back screaming and hits the movie screen; thirty feet away and eight feet in the air. He lands with a thud. He’s not getting up. Everyone around me is staring at me with shock or fear. Nobody is moving except for the curator and Mr Rivers.  
They both run and check on Alex to see if he’s okay before I realize what’s happening. He’s breathing. On the outside he just has a broken nose. They call in the museum doctors, and they say he needs to go to the hospital to see if there’s any internal damage. Nobody is moving but everyone is still staring and whispering, even Nat is just looking at me in shock.  
Once Mr Rivers realizes he can’t do anything more for Alex, who just woke up, he runs over to me. “Adrian what happened?! How did he get over there?! What did you do?!”  
I haven’t been able to think of a single word in the whole time between what happened to Alex and now.  
I'm on my knees, I'm shaking too hard to support myself… to do anything. My mouth is so dry and my throat constricted so tight I don't even know how I'm speaking.  
“I DON’T KNOW! ALL I DID WAS PUSH HIM, HOW COULD I DO THAT?! WHATS GOING ON MR RIVERS?!” I gasp as my throat is closing up more and tears are streaming down my face. I can't see.  
Is it the tears? I don’t know.  
I still can’t think of anything, nothing.   
What’s going on…? What’s going on?!Natalie has me in a tight embrace.  
“Get away from me, I don’t want to hurt you!” I scream, and I feel fear wash over me as Natalie and Mr Rivers are pushed back several feet by an invisible force.   
I collapse to the ground and scream.   
“GET AWAY, GET AWAY!”   
Mr Rivers gets everyone else out of the theatre except for Natalie, who’s refusing to leave. My head feels like an nuclear bomb went off in it, I’m thinking of a thousand things and nothing at the same time. My heart feels like it’s twitching. A sheen of sweat is building up on my forehead. They pull me up and sit me down in one of the seats with them on my right side. I’m still sobbing uncontrollably, shaking too hard to do anything but sit.   
“Mr Rivers” Natalie whispers to our teacher, “His eyes were glowing, and look at his hair…”  
“I know Natalie,” He says grimly, I wipe my tears away to see his face, there's no tiredness in his face anymore, no emotion at all.“I know what’s happened here…”   
I force myself to stop crying and control my breathing when I look into Mr Rivers eyes. I already know his answer.   
“Adrian, your ability has manifested.”


	4. Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR  
Even though my body has reverted to a sense of quasi-normalcy, my mind has a long way to go. My head is wracked with the extreme pressure generated by the sheer number of questions in my head.   
What happened? How did this happen? Why? How is this possible? Should I feel happy for chucking Alex across the room? Should I feel sad or scared or ashamed? I don’t know! I just don’t know…  
Natalie showed me my reflection on her makeup mirror earlier, my normally brown hair looks like it’s been streaked with a deep orange color. My ability left a physical mark on my body.  
I feel the tears pooling in my eyes as Nat and I are sitting against one of the marble columns outside the museum waiting for my parents to pick us up. Mr Rivers is standing a couple of feet from us, waiting to fill my parents in on what happened.  
There really is something to the power of suggestion, I see my parents pull up in a taxi. My mother and father are barely walking as they ascend the steps to hug Nat and I.  
“Wait in the cab, okay guys?” My father says softly. He looks us both over briefly before joining the conversation between my mother and Mr Rivers. He does a double take as he leaves back at me. A quizzical expression is on his face.  
That’s my dad for yah, always looking for something to heal. He has a regenerative ability that heals wounds and can strengthen a body’s immune system, he can project this ability onto others through sheer willpower. It’s what he does for a living at the hospital.   
We step into the cab and close the soundproof window between us and the driver, by his stares my parents must have filled him in on the urgency of the situation… at the very least.  
From the cab we can see my parents and our teacher deeply involved in conversation. My mother puts her hand over her mouth and my dad occasionally stares in our direction, his brown eyes staring into my own, then he walks inside while my mom starts walking back to the cab.  
“This is bad isn’t it.” I say to Nat.  
“No, not at all Andy.” She grabs hold of my hand. “It was just an accident and everyone knows it. Besides, do you think Alex will ever glance in your direction again?” She smiles weakly in an attempt to bring me up.  
“I just hope he’ll live long enough for us to find out.” I say. She looks at her feet. I can feel my throat closing again and my hands start to shake.   
“Just breathe,” Natalie presses softly. She’s holding both of my hands now.  
Just as I finish my sentence, mom opens the door. “Let’s have a little talk kiddo, okay?”  
My heart is pounding as I glance at Natalie and step out of the car, I have no idea what she’s gonna say. Nothing like this has happened before in my life. She should be mad, shouldn't she? Or scared?  
“Your dad’s patching up Alex now.” She says to me. “I know it’s a big surprise and you’re probably scared and ashamed, but don’t feel bad about what you did.” I look at her in shock. I have to make an effort to stop myself from crying again. “People can’t control what happens when they manifest. When I was twelve one of my friends started floating and couldn’t bring himself back down to the ground for about an hour!” She says laughing, trying to lighten up the mood.   
One look at me stops that, though.  
“Sure you had a nasty result when your ability showed up, but it’s his fault.” She says, her serious voice in full gear. “If he hadn’t attacked you two it wouldn’t have manifested at all, Mr Rivers says it was likely all your emotions and adrenaline that jump started your ability. So in a way, blaming him is thanking him.”  
At this point, I’m inches away from losing it. I don’t know why. I’m freaking out…   
I don’t know if I can thank anyone for what happened in the museum, quite frankly I want to forget it all.  
“Oh there’s your father now.” She says, looking back to the museum. My dad walks up to mom and I with quick and determined strides. His flyaway dirty blonde hair is catching both the sun and the breeze.   
“He’ll be okay, just a minor concussion and some broken bones.” My heart feels like it’s in my throat.  
I start crying.  
I did that!  
My mom sees my face and elbows my dad in irritation. “B-but it was nothing I couldn’t patch up.” He adds quickly. “Kind of like tasting his own medicine if you ask me”   
Wrong thing to say. It takes Natalie and my parents to bring me back again, I still haven’t stopped shaking.  
I shrug. “How do you feel?” He asks me.   
I shrug again, “starving.” I didn't even notice until he asked.  
He chuckles, “abilities make the body operate faster when we, so that means your metabolism speeds up too. Makes sense that you're hungry.”  
It's true, my mom and dad use their powers a lot for their jobs, so they usually eat five meals a day. I only eat with them for three.  
My parents and I file back to the cab, where Natalie was impatiently waiting.  
“Mr Rivers let you come home with us Nat,” my mom said.   
“I was gonna be coming with you guys no matter what,” she says as lounges back and puts her feet against the plexiglass barrier.  
My mom laughed as we got into the car next to her, she knows it's the truth.  
“Do you kids want anything on the way home? Pizza?” My dad asks from the front of the car, the back didn't have enough room for all four of us.  
I shake my head, concentrating as hard as I can to not accidentally set off my power the whole way home. I don’t know what sets it off. I can’t have another Alex. 

Somewhere along the way I go into one of those times when you come bouncing back and forth from sleep to consciousness. From my brief glances I can tell I’m the only one lying down, and a couple of times I’ve woken to hushed conversations between my parents and Natalie.   
“Look Mrs Peters, all I know is that one second Alex has us both down and the next he’s knocked out on the other side of the room. Adrian’s eyes were glowing orange.” Natalie says as she gently strokes my hair. “And then there’s this obviously.”  
“I gave up on ever believing he would ever manifest.” My dad exclaims in disbelief, “but I suppose anything is possible.”  
“I almost wish he didn’t” Nat replies, “I never want to see him like that again, freaking out and screaming like that. He’s never been that messed up, and I couldn’t help him. Not to mention everything with Henry…”  
I can't help from flinching, and I think everyone in the car noticed it. It's not often I hear his name. I hadn't even thought of him until now… its been so long.  
I give up pretending to sleep since hearing my brother’s name gave me away.  
“The worst is over now.” My mom grabs my hand and caresses it, hearing his name affected her too. “Tomorrow we have a potestologist coming to the house, he’ll help Adrian figure out what he can do and how to control it.”  
Natalie whistles, “you guys are definitely springing on this one.”  
“We have to,” my dad retorts.  
I think Natalie can sense my fear squeezed next to me in the small back seats, because they don’t talk for the rest of the car ride as I revert back to my flip flop state of sleeping. I hope this lasts forever.


	5. Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE  
We can’t always get what we want.  
A potestologist is someone who is basically someone you see when you have problems with your power or are just discovering it, so like an audiologist for your ears . This is why I want to be at the beach, because I’m straining to stare at it out my window but one of these “Ability specialists” is standing in my view.  
“Come on Adrian you have to try,” The Potestologist, Mr. Yassin, says almost whining as he has been doing for the past thirty minutes. My parents had both left for work a little bit ago, so it's just me and him. “Now what was going through your head when you manifested, any particular thoughts? Did you feel any different  
“I just felt very angry,” I said back. “I hated what Alex was doing and I wanted to stop it.”  
“But did you feel any different, anything you haven’t felt before until then?”   
I look back on what happened yesterday even though I don’t want to, he won’t stop visiting until he sees results. I remember feeling the anger and the pain…  
“Wait,” I say “I do remember something.”  
A spark of excitement ignites in Dr. Yassin’s eyes.   
“What was it?”  
I think harder on what happened, trying to place myself back in the theatre. I remember everyone was lined up except for the three of us, the line was slowly shuffling toward the door. As Nat and I went down people looked back and were starting to shuffle towards us.   
Wait. I think as I realize something. My eyes were closed. How could I know all of that?  
I tell Dr. Yassin what I realize and he’s practically beaming.  
“Interesting. Keep going! What else was there?” His excitement is almost tangible.  
I try again, thinking harder than before; everything was so vivid. I could feel the concern of my classmates as I was writhing on the floor, some people felt anger and sympathy. I could feel Nat’s fear. That’s what made me angry I felt her fear! When I pushed Alex thirty feet away, I could feel his fear too. Alex’s fear was different, stronger somehow. He felt like he was going to die.   
I try to stifle my goosebumps but it doesn't work.  
“I could feel everyone’s emotions, like they were mine.” I say to Dr. Yassin. “How could I do that? What is this?”  
I look down at my open palms, the ball them up. I can read emotions… What am I? Am I like him?  
“That’s what I’m here to find out.” He opens my hands. “I want you try feeling my emotions. What I’m thinking.”  
I can feel the confusion warp my facial expression. “How?”  
“The only one who can answer that question is you.”  
Ugh. I thought to myself. Thanks a lot.  
All of the things Dr. Yassin suggest end up failing, trying to imagine what he’s thinking; trying to reach in and “pull” out his thoughts with an imaginary hand; trying to imagine myself literally peering through his mind. After a while I stop even talking to him.  
At this point we’re just staring at each other sitting in chairs facing each other, both of us deep in thought. He was trying to trigger my power, I was trying to trigger a daydream.  
“Adrian.”   
“Yeah?”  
“You won't be like your brother.”   
My face gets hot, I can't stop it. Anger’s boiling in me.  
“You don't know anything about Henry.” I say to him. Who is he, to mention him. I've never met this man, where does he get off talking to anyone about him.   
“Last time, when your brother manifested, they didn't spring for a potestologist. Because his power was straightforward.” He says quickly, defensively. Is he afraid of me?   
How could I forget? I was there! I know what happened because I saw it.  
My older brother, Henry, could read minds. He manifested when I was ten, and we were all so happy, there was no confusion. There was no horrible accident, nobody got hurt. We were told we didn't need a specialist. That it was all set and done.   
“They were wrong.” I said, emotionless.  
“Yes,” he says, like a mediator, he brushes a hand through his black hair. “They were wrong. But here you are… and here I am.”  
I look him in his walnut shaped eyes, his eyes that are so dark brown they look all black.   
“You won't be another Henry, because we're going to figure out what you can do, for the sake of everyone, yourself, but especially for your parents.  
“But if you want to help them.” He says, “you need to cooperate with me.”  
He's right, and I know it. I can't let what happened with my brother happen to me too.  
I hate this, all of it. But I have no choice.   
“I have one more suggestion, and that’s it for today.” He says in a resigned tone.  
Fine.  
“Shoot.”  
“Try to imagine what it felt like, I want you to describe it to me in detail. What was it like.”   
“I don’t know.” I say, slightly annoyed. “It just felt like I was just aware of everything around me.”   
“Get more specific.” Dr. Yassin persists. “Be as descriptive as you can.”  
I look back on yesterday.   
“I felt everything, where everything was. I could tell you how many chairs there were, how many people and what they were doing and thinking. I could sense and feel it all at once… it was like… it was…”   
I’m at a loss for words. Come on! I think.  
“I felt disconnected from my body… No, that’s not right… I felt like that everything in that room was part of me, and not just my body.”  
For some reason that seemed to click in Dr. Yassin’s mind. “That’s good! That’s amazing!” He’s giddy with excitement. “Try doing it again.”  
I imagine myself as everything in the living room, and the shock I feel is the most intense in my life.  
My consciousness is no longer confined to my body, I can feel everything in the room. All of the furniture, pictures on the walls, the movement of the dozen or so solar motion toys mom keeps on the windowsill are part of me now; so is Doctor Yassin. I can feel his presence the strongest, an overwhelming feeling of surprise washes over me, but I can feel it originating from Dr. Yassin’s mind. Slowly I can feel it turn into excitement and happiness.   
I wonder…  
To revert back to my normal state all I have to do is imagine myself compressing back into my body, and the feeling I get is something in between falling and taking off a heavy coat.   
Dr. Yassin must have seen my eyes glow, as the smile on his face looks like it’ll tear his face down the middle.   
I get a sly smile on my face. “You’re feeling happy.”


	6. Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX  
“It’s a what?” My dad asked with a spoonful of mashed potatoes at the threshold of his mouth, his face perplexed.  
“A conscious field with extrasensory perception and psychokinetic abilities.” The more times I have to repeat it to my parents the easier it rolls off my tongue. I have been getting grilled like this ever since my mom put dinner down on the table.  
“Layman’s terms, Adrian.” My dad says, chuckling slightly.  
“You’re a doctor!” I exclaim with mock exasperation!  
“Abilities are a whole other ball game.” He replied.  
“Well we’re not entirely sure yet, he had to go to another appointment. What we know for sure is that I can expand my consciousness outside my body by means of a mental field I can project. Anything inside this field is sort of a “part” of me. I’m completely aware of anything inside the field even with my eyes closed, and I can sense the emotions of a person inside the field; because they are a part of me too when that happens.” My parents just stared at me for a bit like I wasn’t their sixteen year old son, but their other son; their nineteen year old son.  
“You can read minds?” My mom asked, something in her face changed. I couldn't place it.   
“No,” I replied very quickly, “it's more like I'm really tuned into whoever and whatever's inside my field.”  
After a long moment, they stare at each other too, did I detect a hint of worry pass between them?  
“That’s deep man.” Natalie says, her mouth full. She comes over for dinner all the time. “Can you pass me the gravy boat?” I sigh, giving in to her request.  
“What I don’t understand is why Dr Yassin has to come back tomorrow when we're not home.” My mom said.  
“Well remember? I made Alex fly across a room. We still don’t know how I did that now do we? The less potential victims the better.”  
The four of us go silent, Nat just gives me a sympathetic look. She almost always has at least one meal a day over at my house with us, and she picked a heavy one this time.  
The rest of the meal is silence only broken by forced and trivial conversation. We still don’t know what I’m capable of entirely, and Nat and my parents know that I’m horrified at what power is inside me; they are too.  
“I gotta use the bathroom.” I say as we were all about halfway through our small bowls of the gelato we’re having for dessert.   
I climb the stairs two at a time, close the door of my small bathroom, and will myself to expand out from my body again.   
Slowly, I can sense my entire house. I am surprised at how minimal the effort is to use my newfound power as I focus in on Natalie and my parents, still at the dinner table but not appearing to touch their gelato. All three of them share concern, but I can feel something different washing over me as well... It’s coming from my dad and not the rest of them, frustration. Immediately I know what it is, my father is so used to being able to heal my pain. By simply putting his hand on any injury it can be healed in a very short amount of time, but he is powerless for anything psychological. These past couple of days, he couldn’t do anything when I needed it the most. Just as I was about to go back to dinner however, my dad started feeling something different. After a couple of seconds my mom and then Natalie were displaying nearly the exact same emotion, a mixture of grief and anxiety I wouldn’t need my powers for discerning and interpreting had I been downstairs. 

I pull myself back to normal, I don’t like feeling their concern for me, but especially not for Henry. It feels like an invasion of privacy as well as making me feel awkward and slightly guilty. I don't want them to be reliving all we went through because of me. It's bad enough I have to, and to figure out what I can do.  
I rush back downstairs to see them all return to their gelato at almost the same time, and ironically chuckle internally.  
Nat decides to go home after helping all of us clean our bowls of the rich chocolate ice-cream (she was the only one who coincidentally didn’t lose her appetite soon after I came down). I decide to go up to my room and read a bit of an ancient novel called Mysterious Island, I fall asleep somewhere around the part where the group finds the message in the bottle.

I didn’t need the alarm clock to wake me up at 6 today, I was already up for quite some time. Even though Dr. Yassin. wouldn’t be here for another hour, I move as quickly as I can though my morning routine of cleaning and eating.  
After that’s all set and done, I run back upstairs and into my bathroom. I close my eyes, and with a deep breath, I will my mind to expand past my body and fill the space of the room.  
Immediately I can sense every item in the bathroom and where it is. I can’t see the room itself but I can at the same time, it’s like when you play through a song in your head and you get that feeling that you are just a step away from actually hearing the music.   
I decide to open my eyes for the first time while powered up.  
What Natalie said was right, where my eyes should be are just round balls of orange light, the same shade of the orange streaks in my hair. There was something different about my reflection as well, something I was surprised not to notice immediately. Looking around the room I quickly realized that it was my vision, which seemed to take on something like an effect when your eyes are slightly out of focus, everything seemed to have a second layer concurrent with the first one. I look at the mirror as I pull my mind back to the confines of my body, and see the orange glow of my eyes dissipate until they are normal again.  
I'm not like him. I'm in control, and frankly I'm starting to like what I can do. Key word there is starting.

I get through three more chapters of The Mysterious Island while sitting on the worn leather couch in the living room during my wait for Dr Yassin to arrive, at which point I had expanded my mind to fill the house and the front yard so I would know he was coming. Interestingly enough he didn’t at all seem fazed when I beat him to the door.  
“No point in waiting Doc,” I say, waves of eagerness like I’ve never felt before in my life rush over me. “What do you want me to do?”  
“Well,” He says as we sit down at our kitchen table facing each other. “I want you to tell me what’s inside of this box.” He takes out a small and featureless black wooden box with a lift lid.  
“How?”  
“We know that you can generate an extrasensory field with your mind.” He says matter of factly. “I want to know the full extent of what you can do with it.”  
“Okay,” I tentatively respond as I close my eyes and power up. I sense the box in Dr Yassin’s hand. Something was different about the box, I could tell without a doubt something was inside of it.  
“There’s a little ball in there.” I say, returning to normal.  
Dr Yassin looked satisfied. “Very good, but now I want you to tell me what color it is.”  
“I can’t.” I respond instantly. “I can’t tell color by sensing it,”  
“That’s not specifically how I want you to do this exercise.” His face had begun to take on a mischievous expression. “I want you to take it out of the box-with this.” He pointed to his head.  
“We know for a fact that you that your ability extends further than extrasensory perception,” He continues, “your friend Alex is living proof. What we need to find out know is what it is that allowed you to manage doing that and how we can unlock it again, and I have a working hypothesis as to what’s going to happen.”  
Although the pause leading up to my response is incalculably short, it feels like minutes have passed before I respond with a tentative “okay.”  
At Dr Yassin’s instruction, I bring the whole room under my control. I can sense Yassin’s eagerness and excitement as a nagging thought that is both in the back of my head and also seemingly emanating from his body, I guess they are one and the same given the fact that the entire living room is currently an extension of my mind.  
He has me focus on the box and try various methods for me to will the box open, such as imagining a hand opening the box, thinking words such as “open” in my mind, expressing a desire for the box to open, and visualising the box opening on its own accord in my mind. After several minutes of testing these methods at varying rates of intensity, I give up and defeatedly slink as far into my chair as possible.  
“I give up,” I say as I stare directly into the dark brown eyes of Dr. Yassin. “Maybe it’s for the best that I never find out how to do what I did, right?” I try and reason with him, begging for a reprieve. “I won’t have to worry about committing an accidental massacre if I wake up on the wrong side of the bed.” I was only half joking.  
He chuckles and says slyly. “If you don’t want any more accidents to happen I suggest you learn to control it rather than suppress it. Besides, there’s still a few ways you can do this…” He trails off for a second, and I can tell he’s lost focus of what’s around him although his eyes are still fixed on me.   
“I got it!” He snaps back to reality with a smile too wide for the confines of his face. “The way you can read my emotions, how do you think you do that?”  
“I don’t know.” I say, frustrated. “Isn’t that what my parents are paying you to find out?”  
“This is true, but you need to understand your power more than I do. Not everyone is like me.”  
Dr Yassin was sort of a cut above the rest when it came to Potestologists. He can sense the nature of a person’s ability by eye contact alone. This perk is why we paid so much for him to come here all the way from Eden, the capital city of Unica, at the school’s suggestion. Given my family's history, we didn't hesitate.  
“Go on. Anything?” His stare is intense, I can almost feel him picking through my mind to find out more about my power. “Fine, its empathy Adrian.”  
“Empathy?” I only know roughly what empathy means, something like sympathy I think…or is it the opposite?b  
“Yes, your ability allows for an extremely powerful empathetic field to be projected. In that moment everything becomes an extension of your consciousness. That’s how you’re able to read the layout of the room. That’s how you’re able to people’s emotions and control objects.” I don’t even need to read his emotions to feel the overwhelming sense of pride he currently has for himself. “Go on. Try the box again, but this time try to establish a deeper connection with it.”  
“Become the box?” I ask sarcastically.  
“Become the box.”  
I close my eyes “Okay…” sighing then drawing in a deep breath, expanding myself across the whole room. This time I draw my focus on the box, and can feel every grain and scratch on it’s surface, the thin layer of glaze across the facades.   
My eyes flutter open so as to see if the Doc’s experiment works, and it takes a minute to get used to the extra layer to my vision that my ability provides. This time, while simultaneously focusing on every miniscule detail of the box, I will the lid to open.  
To the loud surprise of the both of us, the lid slowly and fluidly opens and the green surface of the ball inside becomes visible.   
“I did it!” I scream loud enough for the neighbors to hear. “I freaking did it!”  
“Ha!” Dr. Yassin says equally as loud as he reaches to shake my hand. “Congratulations Adrian, you’re officially Telekinetic.”  
I wouldn’t be surprised if Dr. Yassin could feel my excitement now, however something was tugging at the back of my mind. Apprehension. But it's not mine   
I clear my throat as the Doctor gathers his things and walks to the door. He turns as he opens it and the outer screen door.   
“If you hurry you might catch the second train into town, I think I’m gonna take the express back to Eden and give myself an short day,” He says. “I'll make another conference call with you and your family tonight. And Adrian, be careful. You have one of the most powerful gifts I’ve ever seen.”  
I can’t help but feel as if his words have a double meaning as he leaves the house and walks rather quickly in the direction of the train station.


End file.
